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Actually, Fat Cat, your statement isn't entirely true. When I was a child, my dad was a city of milwaukee electrician. That was over 65 years ago, and they had the residency rule in place at that time too. The city wasn't a bad place at all then, but our family just didn't like city life. We didn't want to be able to see into your neighbor's kitchen from one of our bedrooms. We just wanted to move out for more space, but couldn't. It's a long time since then, and I still haven't forgiven Milwaukee for that rule. BTW, I've been outside of Milw county now for over 30 years and have no intention of ever being lured back.

MPS is s microcosm of the city's future. It's not bright. New home buidling opportunities are nearly nonexistent. Crime is on the uptick. Citing residency as contract leverage is a sham. Never was and never will be. Nonetheless, if city employees are allowed to live outside the city, blight and fiscal collapse will soon follow. "School Choice" regardless of income would be the better option.

For over 30 years the city has been telling the policemen,firemen and teachers that the only way residency requirement could be changed is if the state law is changed. Now that the state law is about to change ,the city is saying it should be negotiated between them and the union. Milwaukee is one of only a handful of cities in the nation that has this strict residency law.

With Homeland Security federalizing local law enforcement, relaxing MPD's residency requirement makes it even easier to declare a fiscal emergency. Then, "to preserve law and order," the Governor just brings in 5,000 scabs from "Homeland Security," to replace 2,000 Milwaukee police officers.

MM, if you were remotely conservative you would understand that obvious violations of Posse Comitatus through the FEDERALIZING of local law (Homeland Security) is the biggest threat to the wages and benefits of MPD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posse_Comitatus_Act

See the old John Wayne flick, "Chisum."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCgL7daQIXQ

Chisum, Tunstall, McSween, and Patron were fighting against the state-controlled monopoly in Lincoln County, run by the Murphy Dolan gang. Along with the citizenry they were winning the "Battle of Lincoln," (1878) until the Murphy/Dolan gang used their political influence with the GOVERNOR to bring in a cavalry detachment from Fort Stanton and protect their monopoly.

Hollywood's happy ending isn't real. The Murphy Dolan gang won the "Battle of Lincoln." Chisum was the only one of the four leaders to die a natural death. The folks who murdered Tunstall, McSween and Patron were well known and never held accountable.

In the 21st century, the FEDERAL government simply sends "detachments" of MPD to Pittsburgh or Chicago (to suppress protests against NATO) or wherever Americans are expressing their 1st Amendment rights. When the MPA is foolish enough to let its resources (and those of the City of Milwaukee) be used to distort LOCAL control of law enforcement, it's only a matter of time, before the same tactics are used against Milwaukee and the MPA.

Homeland Security is just praying Local 21 will try a "blue-flue" strategy so they can bring in 5,000 scabs to take MPD's 2,000 jobs.

The absolute best leverage Local 21 has in protecting their wages and benefit is their city residency.

Wrong, Chicago still has it including teachers. Typical "divide and conquer" position by corrupt GOP and Tea Patsies. Love it or leave it. Taxpayers have a right to require residency as a privilege for public service. Public servants have a duty to become involved and participating in the electoral process of their communities to support the common good.

Strictly as a business point of view lack of city residency rules may have contributed to a national issue of uncollected taxes for states. There is over one billion sitting on Wisconsin books for uncollected business employment related state tax. This is a problem seen in other states. The businesses owing the most unpaid employment related state tax are often located in areas with no local government employment residency rule. This is a trend that has been seen by tax professionals for sometime.

Residency rules have absolutely nothing to do with unions or personal preferences. They are economic tools to enforce tax collection.

Government employees need to realize their support of business growth where employment and other taxes are not paid contributes to their own loss of wages and benefits. Waukesha county has a concentration now of the individuals and businesses that owe the most to the state in unpaid taxes.

The fight for the end of the residency rule started when the prosecutors became state employees and were allowed then to move out of the county. Since they did it why can't we created problems and discord. That was all poorly handled with ineffective leadership.

All city and county workers face a much bigger decision of personal choice. If they can not support their local communities to buy local its their jobs that will suffer not that private sector business community they are supporting shopping elsewhere. They will have your money to support candidates that cut budgets supporting your jobs. Too many companies city/county workers support with their paycheck spending are supporting tax cuts.

Walker needs to weigh more seriously the result of over a billion dollars in unpaid state taxes.

All sides need to look before they leap. The devil always is in the details. Its critical we all support buy US Made and buy local to rebuild our communities. You can't run from the problems because they are everywhere in every community.

Mr. Klappa did not climb the corporate ladder by worrying about safety or customers. He got to the top with a laser-like focus on shareholder return. The only counterweight to his naked greed is LOCAL government and the PSC (Public Service Commission).

It should come as no surprise that the Bradley Foundation and the Greater Milwaukee Committee want to cut representation on the County Board. It's much easier to buy local government if there are fewer of them and they are paid less.

Gale is one of my favorite corporate pigs. WE Energies made net income of over $550 million dollars with absolutely ZERO cost controls. That's half of MPS' entire operating budget made off the backs of mostly SE Wisconsin taxpayers. If WE were run as a co-op or state agency, that's $500 million returned to our local economy instead of WE shareholders...

Let's not forget Mr. Klappa's support for coal miners in Wyoming and Colorado. Keep those folks feeding the green house gas supply chain so he could flatten local, sustainable, energy generation in Wisconsin.

Natural gas from Wisconsin dairy farms is the same (CH4) as what they frack out of the ground. Both have to go through the same refining process. Thanks in part to Mr. Klappa, Wisconsin dairy farmers haven't gotten the same subsidies as his out-of-state suppliers.

"Video featuring the first Dairy Farm in the US to use a Methane Digester to produce Biogas, a compressed natural gas, from cow manure. Shot on location at the Hilarides Dairy in Lindsay, California, where they use biogas to power their milk tanker delivery trucks."http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIkEm8JUOfY

BWB - by the way, WE is a Regulated Utility and it's rates are set by the PSC in WI & MI.

We also happens to be one of teh best run utilities in the country, has been for years.

Regarding the explosion near the Pfister, uncleared streets leaked water into the underground tunnels that support power lines. Water & power don't mix well. Had your city properly cleaned the streets of Ice & Snow, the incident would not have happened.

All you have to do for that money is give up all of your holidays with your family, chase the robbery suspect into the dark yard, go to court on your off day and miss your kids school functions, respond to the sexual abuse of the 8 year old, sit guard over the guy who has been sitting dead in his house for two weeks over the hot summer days, respond TO the shots being fired, handle the scene of the car accident that literally has body parts thrown all over the street....then deal with the fact that if you do screw up on your off day you will get your photo plastered all over this rag of a news paper." Fleecing your own residents for fat saleries"....yeah that what they're doing.

The statements made by the aldermen, "It is a matter of local control and bargaining, and thus, should be handled between the City’s labor negotiator,etc.." is not necessarily true. The City's labor negotiator places the topic of residency in the category of, "Prohibited Subject of Bargaining". They are allowed to do so because there is a law in place for residency. Having been involved in several City contract negotiations, I have witnessed the City's labor negotiator start the fist meetings with the statement that they will not discuss residency, period. Don't let the City fool you. They have never negotiated over residency and they never will.

Nor should they. Once Local 21 abandons residency, they lose what little leverage they have left. Gov. Walker will declare a "fiscal emergency," and cut their pay. They try a blue-flue strategy, he can bring in plenty of scabs from Homeland Security at 1/2 their salary and benefits, "to preserve law and order."

Gov Walker will give the police and firefighters of Milwaukee the right to live where they want. This is the payback for supporting him in the election. They were the only unions not affected by Walkers union busting tactics.

There is not a shortage of qualified applicants for these jobs. There is a surplus. Virtually all make a significant amount above their base salary via overtime. Some even more than Cheif Flynn or Mayor Barrett. If they desire to move they may do so. Like anyone else they can get a different job. There are plenty of qualified people to replace them. If they wish to keep their well paid and generous benefits jobs, they must accept the terms and conditions. Which unlike other public jobs they are allowed to bargain for due to the cowardly exemptions for police and fire unions from Act 10.

I hope the city workers do their research. One police department that argued for and got a residency rule change was completely shutdown, parts of another were consolidated resulting in job loss for officers that left the area.

Teachers are not immune either. A group of teachers leading the way for charter schools so they could live where they wanted were the first fired from those charter schools. Those teachers including one awarded as one of the best in the state are still unemployed.

What no one is telling the city workers supporting this change is the activists never get to reap the rewards. That is the cross you bear. That is what makes a great activist, gives them soul and why they win. They can never profit from their work or reap any benefits from it.

This residency issue is smoke and mirrors that will cause job loss for city workers. It will change the dynamic to increase wage bases in other communities shifting the entire aid picture. Those communities will not want to hire someone that worked in the poorest town of all. Its been done before and it was the city workers that paid the price.

Well, if the mayor, council and MPS would make Milwaukee a decent place to live, maybe there would not be a problem. I do not live in Milwaukee and do not care to do so because of the crime and schools.

What happened to the 17 year old that pulled a gun on an off duty detective? I have not seen anything about that illegally carrying "wonderful citizen".

Bear, glad you want to end the job-killing-government-regulations against marijuana. My guess is, like me, you would never encourage anyone who did not have a serious illness to use it, you just know the prohibition against alcohol did not work.